Dear Editor
My compadre in last week’s paper, called for Christians to step forward and participate in the political process. I couldn’t agree more.
We, as Christians, all Americans and all human beings striving to breathe free air, should and must step forward and embrace the values which Christ embraced and died for some 2,000 years ago, for all of us.
What values?
Love all human beings, whoever and whatever their beliefs, appearance or material wealth, or lack thereof.
Respect his creation… our planet and its environment, lest we surely lose it.
Recognize that his death saves us, if we will only ask his forgiveness for all our sins, whatever they may be, or as Christ, through his disciples ranked them (from worst to least), through 2,000 years of Catholic theology:
Pride – That would be believing that we (or our nation, race or political beliefs) are somehow better than others.
Greed - That would be believing that we should have more than we actually need to have to be filled with joy in our life in Christ’s creation, this world of his and ours.
Lust – When coupled with pride, envy & greed, arguably has dictated the failure to marry &/or the termination of most marriages, resulting in more and more dysfunctional families.
Envy – When combined with pride & greed undoubtedly has contributed to most, if not all of this world’s deadly conflicts throughout human history.
Gluttony – Arguably, an absence of spiritual awareness/fulfillment (the only thing which can bring us long term joy) resulting in our utterly futile efforts to sate our bodies with material things.
Wrath/Anger – Arguably feeding off our fear that our fellow human beings will recognize and/or somehow attempt to thwart our pride, greed, lust, envy and/or gluttony, via war, “unfair” laws or attempts to unfairly misinterpret them, or pretending that we are somehow gods/God by wallowing around God’s beautiful creation, endangering his family, his community and his fellow human beings through his disrespect of life, values and that creation, most perniciously with weapons designed explicitly to kill his fellow human beings.
Sloth – Some would interpret it as mere laziness, but religious scholars, and I would argue Christ would term it a laziness/disengagement of the spirit, a willful ignorance or unwillingness to think beyond oneself to embrace and address the wellness of his fellow human beings and Christ’s creation.
Nowhere does his teaching advocate creating walls to restrict our fellow human beings, endangering our fellow human being’s health or wellness or promoting or assuaging our wealth, greed, anger, envy, gluttony or slothfulness through minimizing or attacking our fellow human beings.
So how do we participate in the political process in light of the above?
Very simply. Recognize what Christ, and most other religion’s values preach.
We have no right to harm others via our lust, envy, gluttony, pride or moral slothfulness, lest we suffer the fate of Sodom, Gomorrah, Babylon, Rome and Hitler’s Germany.
As my compadre recommended, step up and vote the pride filled, greedy, lustful, gluttonous, morally vacuous, and/or envious and slothful out of office and send them back to church to pray and reflect on their multitude of sins.
Jim Martin
Perryville
